Top 10 Movies About Love
By Cinema Sugar
We’re zooming out from the valentines and rom-coms of the season to appreciate our Top 10 Movies About Love in all its cinematic forms—through the bonds between friends, family, parents & kids, pets, lovers, and everything in between.
10. I Love You, Man
“Hooking up is easy. Meeting platonic male friends? Not so much.” That’s the dilemma facing Peter, the freshly affianced realtor (played with the trademarked awkward charm of the ageless Paul Rudd) who realizes he doesn’t have any guy friends. It’s a premise that creates a lot of comedy as the bromance between Peter and Jason Segal’s smooth Sydney progresses, but also follows the typical rom-com tropes through man-dates and Rush jam sessions towards a touching and testosterone-positive resolution. Man, I love you, I Love You, Man. —Chad Comello
9. Interstellar
Though originally a Spielberg project, no one but the Nolan brothers could’ve made this mind-bending sci-fi movie about humanity’s search for a new home and a father’s love that stretches through space and time. The way they imbue meaning and weave emotion into highly intellectual constructs is unmatched, and they use real science to prove that love is a tangible force. Shooting on film, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema gives the movie practical light and texture that keep us grounded and even nostalgic while on earth, then deep blacks and grays in space that have the opposite effect. And the iconic musical score from Hans Zimmer not only became TikTok famous, but I guarantee has provoked tears from more grown men than they care to admit. Cooper and Murph 🫶 —Natalie Pohorski
8. Dogfight
This is a wonderfully gentle and raw vignette about falling in love. It’s skittish, awkward, heartfelt, and flush with sincerity and warmth. The synergy between Birdlace and Rose feels so authentic and real, which makes the progression of the night portrayed here feel so convincing. A heartbreaking ode to compassion in the shape of a sudden romance against the backdrop of an America in the midst of the anguish of considerable change, this is a film about the senselessness of cruelty and the capacity of love to cut through all the bullshit. —Natalie Bauer
7. A Matter of Life and Death
There are so many ways to say “I love you.” In Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death, their way is one involving a fighter pilot, a radio operator, and a tale of two worlds between them. Marvelously designed, charmingly balanced by whimsy and bureaucracy; fantasy and reality, and timelessly told under the romantic veneer of Technicolor, this film is a love story for our life, the afterlife, and anywhere in between. —Kevin Prchal
6. Past Lives
Two childhood sweethearts, Nora and Hae Sung, are pulled apart after Nora’s family leaves South Korea. Twenty years later, they deal with the feelings they’ve had to push down since being apart. I had the privilege of watching this in theaters after finding out my ex was engaged, while also not knowing the future of the relationship I was in at the time, all while wrestling with the emotions of this movie. I clutched my best friend’s hand as Hae Sung explained the possibility of their past lives intertwining, bringing them to this exact moment in their lives now. I then promptly sobbed all throughout the credits. This movie is a beautiful, slice-of-life film that deserves all of the accolades that come its way and, more importantly, a spot in the list of my favorite movies of all time. —Mirachelle Anselmo
5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
In Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, love fills every scene. It’s in every word spoken and unspoken, every crashing wave and creaky floorboard, every mannered formality and passionate abandonment of it. Each moment shared between Héloïse and Marianne, both very well knowing their love will not survive beyond the time they have, is treated as nothing short of sacred. Time and again when I watch this film, a hush falls over me like a crowded room witnessing an amazing live performance, and I sit back in awe of its quiet, colossal power. —Kevin Prchal
4. Moonlight
Love positively radiates from Barry Jenkins’ 2016 film (and Cinema Sugar favorite) Moonlight. It’s in Mahershala Ali’s Juan caring for a young and vulnerable Chiron, teaching him how to swim, and affirming his identity. It’s in teenage Chiron’s tender moments on a beach with his friend Kevin. And it’s in adult Chiron’s reconciliation with his abusive mother in recovery, and with Kevin over a simple diner dish. Above all Moonlight shows us just how much love is a verb, and how love (or lack thereof) reverberates long after a moment passes. —Chad Comello
3. Punch-Drunk Love
Given its short runtime and Adam Sandler casting, you’d be forgiven for mistaking this for a generic, early 2000s romcom instead of the auteurist, sharp-edged yet big-hearted oddity it actually is. Fresh off the expansive and deadly serious Magnolia, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson zoomed into this peculiar story of Sandler’s lonely entrepreneur Barry who gets in over his head while also falling head over heels for his sister’s sweet coworker. It’s a celebration of true love both in how it shows what love is not—familial abuse, phone sex scams—alongside what it is at its best: an emotional refuge, a catalyst for connection, and an inspiration toward everyday, tire-iron-wielding heroics. —Chad Comello
2. Before Sunrise
Linklater has never made a movie, before or since, that’s more illusive; you can feel the stories of untold couples rambling in kindred directions—drifting down meandering Vienna side-streets at first blush, reconciling present with past and future—and readily holding space for the companionship of someone whom they’ve only just met and they’re just so damned captivated by. It’s both unique and familiar, and Linklater sculpts it into pure romance; a gauze of softened daylight and dizzy ideas, two people meeting and inching their way nearer like magnets. A constellation and a piece of cinema that I keep close to my heart. —Natalie Bauer
1. City Lights
On screen as it is in life, love can be found in many forms. But I’m positively certain of one thing: there is no form quite like the great Charlie Chaplin’s. Following the Tramp’s adventures from the streets to high society in search of a cure for his true love’s blindness, City Lights is as knee-slappingly funny as it is romantic. It’s filled to a top hat’s brim with mishaps, unrivaled physical comedy, and a heartwarming central romance that’s transcended generations. When it comes to love portrayed on screen, this one continues to carry the torch. —Kevin Prchal